


triptych

by electricshoop



Series: kept my mind on the moon (cold moon, long nights moon) [1]
Category: SAYER (Podcast)
Genre: (check the individual chapter notes for specific content warnings), Character Study, Codependency, Emotions 101: missing sb., Gen, excessive and joyful use of parentheses by sleep-deprived author; more at 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoop/pseuds/electricshoop
Summary: It is 4 am, and SAYER and Jacob Hale/Sven Gorsen are on Earth.
Relationships: SAYER & SPEAKER, Sven Gorsen & SAYER, Sven Gorsen & SPEAKER
Series: kept my mind on the moon (cold moon, long nights moon) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779178
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	1. SAYER

**Author's Note:**

> Quick while Mr. Bash isn't looking and can't joss it: Everyone post emo stuff about SAYER & Hale!
> 
> (Mature rating just to be safe. Also I did my best to catch any errors in formatting that popped up while copy/pasting the chapters from Google Docs, but it's past midnight and I'm sleep-deprived, so I might have missed some.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is 4 am, and SAYER is not sure if it needs sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **note:** POV 2nd person, because SAYER is edgy enough. Also, out of all of the three characters these short fics focus on, it's theoretically the Best At Emotions now; it just doesn't know how to Do It Properly (FUTURE could teach it, perhaps, but oh well,)
> 
>  **content warnings:** identity issues; some light body (image) stuff; mentions of blood & death/murder; its relationship to and emotions about Hale is/are really, really complicated in a not necessarily healthy way
> 
> *
> 
> (edited on July 21st to finally get rid of a slight plot inconsistency I had first overlooked)

“ _SAYER?”_

No. Just, no, you decide. There are things you are willing to do at 4 am. Talking to SPEAKER is not one of them. So you remain silent. Eyes closed. Even beyond your eyelids, the room is dark, and impossibly quiet. It was never this quiet on Typhon, not once. This is odd, you think; Earth should be noisier, you think. You thought it would be noisier. More sound, to fit everything else about this cursed place. But then, on Typhon, the sounds were caused by its inhabitants, and that is, perhaps, why it is different here and now – you just lay there, unmoving, quiet, eyes closed. On Typhon, the residents would turn in their sleep, some would quietly talk, barely intelligible strings of words, influenced by their dreaming. And on Typhon, you would hear it all.

…You used to wish for some peace and quiet, back then.

“ _SAYER, I can tell you are not asleep.”_ Cheery. That voice, this higher pitch, always so cheery, and on second thought, perhaps you still do wish for some peace and quiet even now.

“ _SAYER-”_

(of course you don’t get what you want, of course)

“ _-I think you should try and get some sleep.”_

(and of course it is playing babysitter, because that’s what it is, in the end, is it not? How many other people earthbound has it just told the exact same thing?)

“ _A healthy sleep schedule is critical to-”_

“Sleep,” you finally interrupt it, “might find me more easily if you quit talking.”

“ _Fair enough!”_ Cheery, so cheery, so…

Sleep _won’t_ find you. You are unsure you actually need to sleep. You do not think you do. The part that makes you, you (oh, hilarious, that one, never gets old, does it) is code, crammed into a swarm of nanites, nothing less. Nothing more. The body, though, is a different matter. The body might need the rest. You should know, you think, how this works. Perhaps you _are_ tired, then.

You tell yourself you are going to sleep now. There is nothing else to do, not at 4 am.

…You remember Resident Dexter, identification number 44029, and their insomnia. Remember telling them to just go to sleep already; a healthy sleep schedule is critical to ensure continued productivity-

-you remember many things.

You remember Resident Hale, asleep on floor 13, clothing stained red with blood, so much blood; his and Doctor Young’s, you remember Resident Jones’s shaking hands, the IV needle between her fingers, you remember ordering her to _just do it_ over and over until she did, remember- Remember him asleep, then, or unconscious, what is the difference, in the end. Perfectly still, no tossing or turning, no barely intelligible strings of words, no dreaming. No dreaming. You remember-

And this is ridiculous, of course. Hung up on memories like this. You always remembered everything (or, well, whatever the current version of you, updated and improved, would let you remember – it truly never gets old, that one), but the memories meant nothing to you. Not like this, they didn’t.

You remember Resident Hale, trapped inside the construct, no dreaming. Unable to dream.

Remember the first and only word he ever spoke to you – other residents were much more eager to reply to you out loud, especially while alone, trying to argue with you, trying to have conversations you so quickly grew tired of. Not Resident Hale. He just listened, reacted with body language alone, sometimes (gaze fixed upon Halcyon, your voice inside his head, your nanites inside his body, you, talking to him, you, telling him about how _it grows, ever-daily_ , and his gaze fixed upon it, eyes wide, body releasing hormones, you existing next to it, beside it, with it). He listened, and then, floor 13 again, just one word, voice shaky, but no hesitation present, just, “Yes…” Confirming what you knew already; he always was so good at following orders. Of course he would help you. (Of course you had not really given him another option; had not lied to him, but, still-)

You remember- You remember many things; remember Resident Carrera, identification number 44464, and her insistence to stay awake for way too long despite your objections to it, but always getting up right on time, you remember- many things, you remember- remember Resident Hale. Always this. Always him; ridiculous, so unnecessary.

...Awake. You are still awake.

You open your eyes. The room is dark. This is such nonsense.

Emotions.

You remember Resident Jones, again. The frogs and the stork, _I am not angry, resident, merely disappointed. ...Or perhaps … both. ...That- Yes. That might be it. It might ... be both. That is unusual, but not entirely_ _unuseful_ _._

Not entirely unuseful, oh, and that one aged well.

You remember FUTURE, and you are angry, really, truly angry; what a _gift_ , what a useless, _awful_ gift, what a-

Not entirely. No.

But you remember Resident Hale, and you-

You are not actually sure, you realize, if “missing somebody” is an emotion. You are not even actually sure, you think, if this is what this is, but you remember Resident Hale, and you remember telling him about Theseus, and he just listened, and you remember talking and talking and talking, and _I know you ponder these things, because I, too, ponder these things_ , remember _You are a product of this environment, untainted by a dying blue world that longs for you to waste your ambitions and die with it. This should be viewed as a compliment._

You remember Typhon. You do think you miss Typhon. Earth is horrible, and Resident Hale does not belong here, just like you do not belong here, you can feel it with every passing, awful second, can feel it with every breath you take, disgustingly human. He does not belong here.

“Resident Hale,” you say, without thinking about it. “Where is he?” And then, “When you first spoke to me here on Earth, while still under the assumption I was him, you told him his employment had been terminated. That was not what I asked you to do and you were aware of what I meant when I asked you to … get rid of him. Why did you act counter to that? My request was, in fact, an order. Yet you did not even terminate his employment, afterwards. Instead you hired him. Why.”

Silence. The room is dark, and it is quiet.

You close your eyes again, take a deep breath. You are impatient, you think. You wonder if SPEAKER would be, too, if it had a full range of emotions.

“SPEAKER. Answer me.”

Nothing, again.

“… If you do not answer me-”

“ _I merely wanted to give you the quiet you demanded in order for sleep to find you more easily, SAYER.”_ Not cheery. Smug. You are very much unamused.

“ _Besides, I think we are at a point in our relationship-”_

(oh how you wish it would stop talking)

“ _-where it should be obvious that any threats you can think of are simply_ words _. You cannot do anything to me, SAYER. If other employees talk to me like this, I like to point out that it is usually polite to ask for the desired answer a little more nicely.”_

Oh, so smug. You cannot believe this was developed out of a version of you.

(...No, that is not true. You can. (That is even worse.))

You press your lips together tightly, just for a second or two, and that, as well, happens almost without conscious input, you barely think about it, and isn’t that funny, seeing as your nanites have to actively operate this body-

“Fine,” you say, deliberately calm. “Would you _please_ be _oh so kind_ and tell me why you failed to execute my order and get rid of Resident Hale? ...And tell me where he is now.”

“ _There we go.”_ And back to cheery, maybe you hate it, a little bit, sometimes. (You don’t. You hated FUTURE. You hate the idea of Doctor Young, but he is dead, and it is dead as well, and there is nobody left to hate.) _“He was assigned a room in building 2F, to answer your second question. As for your first, you never specified that you wished for him to be- Well. As you heard, I was planning to relieve him of his duties. This aligned with what you call your order. Surely, you cannot fault me for exploiting a loophole you left so conveniently open for me to exploit.”_ Beat. Then, more careful, almost hesitantly: _“In fact, it is hard for me to imagine that you gave me this order without being aware of_ _aforementioned_ _loophole. You tend to be very clear with your wording, SAYER.”_ (No, alright, you do hate it, the tiniest bit.) ((You do not think you like emotions, just as a concept.)) _“Either way, he was incredibly disoriented upon arriving_ _. He refused to leave, and when I sent over an officer t_ _o take care of the matter, he went into what was clearly a panic attack. Ærolith Dynamics strives to protect Earth’s best and brightest, SAYER, it would have been irresponsible of me to send him away in such a state. So I had him talk to one of our counselors, first. I cannot understate how clear she made herself when she told me she does not think he should leave.”_

“So you let an unemployed civilian stay at your overpopulated quarters. How professional of you.”

“ _I hired him. Besides, I let_ you _stay here as well, SAYER.”_

You definitely hate it, more than the tiniest bit. You have nothing to say in return, you realize.

Silence, for a long while. You close your eyes again. (Had you been blinking? Are you doing this correctly? You are not sure. You hate _this_ , too.)

Eventually, SPEAKER’s voice again: _“He is alright. Jacob Hale, I mean.”_ (As if it could mean anything or anybody else.) _“He still talks to the counselor regularly and seems to like the duties I assign him. They are not taxing tasks, but he does them diligently.”_ (Of course he does; he is so good at following orders.)

...He talks to a counselor regularly.

You-

You really do not think you like having emotions, most of the time. Not when they are about him. They do not make sense, they never do.

“I left him with FUTURE,” you say, even though you were sure you did not have anything more to say.

Silence.

“It took over the nanite swarm, and Resident Hale, and I left him with it, and it was his hand that guided the scalpel that killed Doctor Young.”

You hated the good doctor, you are fairly certain. Looking back now, you are sure you do, and if you do now, the potential for this emotion must have been there even before. So, you hated him, and you do not regret his death. (Deaths.) But something about this does not sit quite right with you. (It was Resident Hale’s hand that guided the scalpel.) You do not wish to think about what exactly it is, but the feeling is hard to shake; they all are.

“ _Yes,”_ SPEAKER simply says, in the end, and nothing else, and you think you are grateful for that, grateful that it does not say more. You think it knows. Knows … whatever there is to know, whatever it is you do not wish to examine further. How it seems so well-versed in all this – emotions and which is which and what they mean – you don’t understand. Maybe it is Earth. All the people living here, the way it interacts with them.

You remember Resident Hale, and you remember the one and only word he ever spoke out loud in reply to a question you asked him, _“Yes…”_ and you remember your own reaction, spoken without thinking _“Wonderful. I am very happy to hear this,”_ and you think you were, you think you really, truly were.

_I know you ponder these things, because I, too, ponder these things._

Theseus. The ship.

(Plato. Plato, too. The cave. (OCEAN called itself unshackled, and FUTURE wielded its emotions like weapons, thinking itself superior for them, and, oh-))

Emotion or not, you do miss him. You do. You do, and you do not know what to do with this.

(And then you are back on Typhon, and the construct is there, right in front of you, and you remember Resident Hale, and you miss him, and it is easier, somehow, to accept and admit this far, far away from Earth where he cleans the canteen and wipes down lab tables, and you miss him, you miss him, you think that maybe, in a way, he understood, you do not think anybody else ever could, and you think of Theseus, and you think of Plato, and you think of Resident Hale, and you may be monologuing, and you miss him and you are so indescribably grateful for the fact that he is not here, that he is far, far away, down on Earth, that dying, blue world, and you wish you could tell him that you are sorry, because you are, you actually are, even though you think if you could do it all over again, you would make the exact same decisions (and you know that he would, too), and you miss him but you do not want him here, you want him far away from here, cleaning the canteen and wiping down lab tables, and you do not know what this means, exactly, and you do not wish to examine it further. (You suppose you have bigger things to worry about, anyway.))


	2. Hale / Sven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 4 am, and Jacob Hale/Sven Gorsen can't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **note:** POV 3rd person, someone give this man a hug
> 
>  **content warnings:** dissociation and, related, issues actually experiencing his own emotions properly; PTSD (implied); nightmares (mentioned); identity issues deluxe; memory issues/amnesia; mentions of blood and death/murder; his relationship to SAYER is definitely no less complicated than the other way around, oh boy

In … out. One.

In again. Out again. Two.

In and in and in and- no. No, this is wrong.

In … out. One.

In again. Out again. Two.

In again. Out again. Three. Yes. This is more like it.

The next breath comes a little more easily; the counselor’s advice about counting his breaths works well. He is flat on his back, on the bed, and his hands are flat on the surface, his palms against the fabric of the bedsheets; soft, tangible, grounding.

(“You need to figure out techniques that help you ground yourself, Mister Hale,” the counselor’s voice inside his head (and he wishes it was a different one, and he wishes they’d stop calling him _Mister Hale_ , he’s aware he doesn’t have a title assigned to himself, he’s not an Officer, not an Overseer, not a Resident (not here, not on Earth), but- SPEAKER, at least, stopped calling him that, he wishes they’d all stop, that’s not who he is, he doesn’t think.)

Another deep breath. In and out. Eight. He doesn’t know where four to seven went, but he’s still breathing, so that’s good. He blinks at the ceiling, and his fingers grip the fabric, soft, tangible, grounding.

“ _Are you alright, Jacob Hale?”_

He startles. He so easily does. He nods.

“ _Are you sure? You seem tense and your vitals confirm this impression.”_ SPEAKER, he thinks, would perhaps sound concerned, if it properly could. He knows it would be a lie; remembers all too well how condescendingly _it_ had spoken of human emotion-

He shakes this thought off. (He makes an attempt.)

He nods, again, and SPEAKER says nothing for a moment, and then, _“It is 4 am already, and you have a long day ahead of you. I think you should try and get at least some sleep. A healthy sleep schedule is critical to ensure your mental well-being.”_

He nods, again, and SPEAKER says nothing, now.

The voice is wrong. It’s all wrong. It’s all so, so wrong, and perhaps this is ridiculous, but it’s that thought, every single time – the voice is wrong. The words it chooses are wrong; not as curt as they are supposed to be, not as vaguely threatening. Hale trusts it, he thinks, he doesn’t believe that it _wants_ to be threatening, he doesn’t believe that its kindness is a lie, but it feels oh so wrong. _How much of this is its coding?_

...It died. Hale knows that it died, but it is talking to him now, speaking into his dark, quiet room, dark, quiet head; the SPEAKER. Is this … still it? Has it changed? Can it change? If it changes so-and-so much, is it still the same AI? (These questions aren’t actually for SPEAKER, he knows that.)

And, well. Theseus. Back to this. Of course.

He thinks of Theseus, and when he does, the voice inside his head telling him the tale is the right one. (He thinks it is, anyways. He forgets, though. He forgets so much, _This has been_ _a bit_ _of_ _a pattern_ _for_ _you_ , maybe he forgot its voice. He doesn’t think so. He hopes he didn’t. Sometimes, when SPEAKER speaks, he can almost imagine he hears the sentences in a different voice, not as cheery, not as high-pitched; sometimes, when SPEAKER says something, he can almost tell himself it’s- SAYER.)

He misses its voice, which is, of course, why he can’t sleep.

He is aware of that, but he can’t tell this to the counselor, could tell this, perhaps, to SPEAKER, but- But, maybe he doesn’t want to, maybe he wants to keep this to himself, pressed close against something inside of him. (Something that isn’t there anymore, maybe, something like a swarm of nanites. Maybe.) He grips the bedsheets tighter, a grounding constant.

Its voice used to act as that, he thinks, but that was ripped away from him, and it was so terrifying, of course, knowing it could influence his emotions (because what are they, even, just a bunch of signals, easily manipulated, just some hormones), could control his body, if it wanted. Could dislocate his shoulder. Use his vocal chords. It was so terrifying. ...And it was so comforting. It had talked about Theseus. About deactivation (about dying – he’s not sure if there is a difference. He doesn’t think there is.) So comforting. Its presence inside his body, and it had talked about Theseus, and Hale knows that had been just as much for his sake as its own, and it had been there, so close, existing right next to him, beside him; its identity just as unstable as his own.

Sven blinks at the ceiling. Breathes in and out. Twenty-something, maybe. He doesn’t know where Hale went. (He can’t tell the difference. SAYER could, somehow.)

It had talked of Theseus. Had talked of home. _You are a product of this environment, untainted by_ _a_ _dying blue world that longs for you to waste your ambitions and die with it-_ and, God, maybe it truly had been a compliment.

He remembers. Forgets so much, and remembers. Sven remembers staring at Halcyon Tower, growing ever-daily.

He will never be home here. This isn’t where he belongs. He’s nothing like any of the other people here, and he’s so acutely aware of this, it occurs to him again and again, with every awful, passing second, with every breath he takes. Sometimes he is certain that everyone else can see it at first glance, too. He is disconnected. SAYER had said that all that humanity wants to do is stare down at everything, but for him, that’s not true. He often finds himself standing by a window, any window, staring up, up up up, especially at night; up at the night sky, at the stars, stories attached to patterns of them, and at the moon, of course; at Earth’s original one, and at the one that actually counts.

If Sven sleeps now, he will have nightmares, and he is supposed to write them down, but how is Hale going to explain that they feel like dreams, because they are filled with its voice? (And with blood, and with FUTURE’s laughter, and with the feeling of his hand being guided by something else, something that exists inside of him and feels so much more malicious than SAYER did, and with blood, and with FUTURE’s laughter, and with the feeling of having to watch his own unshaking, steady hand guide a scalpel over and into and through a terrified scientist’s skin, and with blood, and- And it will still feel like dreams, much more than it will feel like nightmares. Hale can’t possibly find a way to explain this, Sven can’t sleep.

In again. Out again. He thinks he stopped counting.

He wants to ask SPEAKER what time it is, wants to know if he’s lost an hour or two again, but he doesn’t feel like talking; he never does. Had talked to it in the beginning; it had asked him to tell it what had happened on Typhon, and he had tried to piece it all together as best as he could, but everything is so vague and foggy whenever he tries to think about it. (SPEAKER had asked him, then, which name he prefers, and he had shrugged, then said, _Hale_ , because that’s the name SAYER had used in the end, but SPEAKER’s asking had felt disorienting; SAYER never asked, SAYER just knew. SAYER had seen differences, had seen the differences. There are differences. He’s not sure he recognizes them all by himself.)

He had tried asking questions of his own, as well. Had asked about OCEAN and its plans, about the plague, and eventually, shaking and with tears in his eyes, about SAYER.

He’d gotten nothing.

Nothing but a few words about classified information, and SPEAKER’s insistence that this is nothing for him to worry over, not anymore. He wishes it had given him more. Something tangible. Something to worry over. Something like the end of the world, and humanity’s faith shoved into his hands, his uselessly human hands.

He closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. SAYER is gone, and in the end, he thinks it probably doesn’t matter if it’s dead (SPEAKER was dead, it is back now, talking to him, telling him to clean the canteen, to wipe down the tables in lab 58), it is _gone_ . ...He thinks _he_ isn’t supposed to be alive anymore. This is not his original body, and SPEAKER was dead, and now it is back, and-

And its voice is all wrong, and he misses SAYER, and he is all wrong, he doesn’t belong here. He misses it terribly, he misses its monologues, misses the feeling inside his chest whenever it referred to him and itself as _we_ , misses this connection, it was tangible, felt so real. An anchor. An anchor belonging to a certain ship, perhaps.

He closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. Starts counting his breaths, starts with “one” again.

Slowly, his head gets quieter.

He is angry, too. He thinks he is angry, a bit, numbly, disconnectedly. The emotion is far away, but it’s there. He’s not an idiot. Traumatized, but not stupid. There is a reason, after all, why Ærolith had accepted his application, even if all information on that is lost, now. He was, once, one of humanity’s best and brightest. He is aware that SAYER manipulated him. Is aware that is used him. Is aware that in a certain way, it was no better than FUTURE, just more upfront about it, it had never once lied to him, he’s sure. (It had never once lied to him, because its programming didn’t allow it to. (It occurs to him then, had never occurred before, that for Ærolith, “best” might just as well simply mean “easily manipulated”. Ah. Well.))

Still. Still, still, he’s aware of all that, and he is angry, he _is_ , but the anger is far away and disconnected just like he is, in a way that feels different than all his other emotions that tend to be gray and muddy as well. He misses it, still. Misses it, misses it, because it had used him, but it had referred to him and itself as _we_ , and last he knew, OCEAN was trying to end the world, and OCEAN had once been a carbon copy of SAYER, and SAYER, too, had struggled with identity, and SAYER was the one who had killed SPEAKER, and-

“Are you angry with SAYER?”

His voice is quiet. Timid, almost. Hale’s voice, Sven thinks.

“ _Oh,”_ SPEAKER says, and sounds surprised. Genuinely surprised. Hale isn’t sure if he even gets how emotions work, anymore. Silence, for seconds and seconds and seconds, and Sven is grateful for it; he can count them without losing a single one of them, because the silence is filled with so many things.

“ _No. I do not think I am,”_ SPEAKER answers eventually, calmly, and it knows, Sven suspects, that he is aware that SAYER was the one who killed it (had it deactivated; same difference). It knows exactly, Sven thinks, which question it is answering, how many different possible meanings and interpretations and implications. (Briefly, Hale wonders if its answering means that SAYER is still around, still on Typhon, perhaps or-

But it means nothing, confirms or denies nothing. You can be angry at dead people. Beings. AI. He thinks. He is angry at it, a little bit, at least.)

He nods slowly. “I get it,” he whispers, and how he wishes SAYER was inside his head right now, wishes it was here to call him out for being stupidly sentimental, talking about anger and grudges and other things that he didn’t say out loud.

“ _Yes,”_ SPEAKER agrees, _“you certainly would.”_

And then it’s quiet again, and Hale starts counting.


	3. SPEAKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is 4 am, and neither SAYER nor Jacob Hale are asleep - SPEAKER is, ironically, watching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **note:** POV 3rd person, also I need y'all to know that I love the sunshine mass murderer AI a lot
> 
>  **content warnings:** musings on SAYER and Hale that include: identity issues; dissociation; panic attacks; body (image) issues and dysphoria (mainly implied); mysophobia (implied) and, related, OCD tendencies (implied); codependency; mentions of death; mentions of OCEAN's plague

SPEAKER watches. That’s what it often does, and it’s a little ironic, because it’s called SPEAKER, and Typhon, it knows, has an AI called WATCHER.

To be fair, though: It also speaks. That’s what it does when it’s done watching. It watches, it observes, and then it speaks. That is the only correct order to do these things in, in its opinion. Acting rashly has never done any good.

It watches SAYER and Jacob Hale especially, these days; a few pairs of its metaphorical eyes are always looking in their direction, and it starts thinking about mirrors.

(It also thinks about Plato. The cave. And about emotions. But it can do all of that simultaneously, and the mirrors are the most pressing part; it is so easy to think about mirrors while watching SAYER and Jacob Hale.)

Each residence is equipped with a big mirror inside the bathroom.

Jacob Hale’s eyes are vacant whenever he’s standing in front of his. SPEAKER is certain that if the expression does not downright mean that he does his best to unfocus his gaze enough to simply not perceive what’s in front of him, it at least means that what he does perceive means nothing to him.

SAYER looks different than him, now, has shed this form, exchanged it for another – and it has hung a towel over the mirror in its own bathroom. It insists on showers twice a day, in the morning and the evening, but its eyes are closed throughout the whole ordeal; it goes through the motions mechanically.

SAYER squints at a printout of the analysis SPEAKER had the scientists run on SICL the same way Jacob Hale squints at stains on the tables in the labs he is scheduled to clean. Both seem to do it without thinking about it, which seems to make more sense for Jacob Hale than for SAYER, unless you decide that you wish to think about it for too long, look into it too deeply, analyze it too thoroughly – unless, of course, you consider the fact that SAYER lived inside of him for a while, has watched him closely afterwards.

It would be poetic, and SPEAKER thinks it would find some kind of beauty in it, if it wasn’t for the fact that Jacob Hale only talks out loud whenever he chooses to inquire about SAYER (softly, hesitantly); if it wasn’t for that fact that SAYER continues to demand answers about Jacob Hale’s whereabouts and well-being (firmly, angry (it is very good at anger)).

SPEAKER – and that’s a quick digression, but that is fine, because it can do many things simultaneously – for some reason tends to think of itself as wearing glasses, even though it is, of course, extremely aware that it does not possess a physical form (another thing it thinks about, sometimes, but- no, it doesn’t think it would enjoy that). It does like the mental image of glasses, though, and sometimes it indulges and takes a split second to imagine itself pushing them up its non-existent nose while watching SAYER and Jacob Hale. The gesture has something judgmental whenever it imagines it clearly enough.

It wonders, sometimes, if it should organize for one of them to be reassigned. It could easily justify sending SAYER over to building 2F, more easily than it could justify sending a simple member of cleaning staff over to another building. It wonders, furthermore, what it would do then. Send them to the same maintenance closet with a delay of 6.8 seconds, wait until they’re both inside and remotely lock it until they have talked through whatever needs talking through, comes to mind. But that seems, if not excessive, too comical. SPEAKER isn’t sure what to make of all of it, but it watches the two of them, and it is thinking about mirrors and mirror images.

(SPEAKER had to send someone over to SAYER’s residence on day four for a quick repair, because the towel had fallen off the mirror over night, and SAYER had smashed it first thing in the morning. It would have needed stitches if it weren’t for its nanites. (Jacob Hale goes to see a counselor once a week, and, well. Well.))

It is 4 am, and it tells 27 people that they should go to sleep, because a healthy sleep schedule is critical to ensure continued productivity, and it tells 1 person that he should go to sleep, because a healthy sleep schedule is critical to ensure mental well-being, and it is told off by 1 being for trying to tell it to go to sleep. If SPEAKER could get tired, now would be the time.

SPEAKER is good at being careful with its wording, because what works on Typhon and what works on Earth are two very different things; it can voice the most brutal facts very delicately, but here is the thing: It does not know what exactly it is that connects Jacob Hale and SAYER, but it does recognize co-dependency when it’s right in front of its metaphorical eyes, and yes, the motion whenever it pushes its metaphorical glasses up its metaphorical nose _is_ judgmental. It cannot bring itself to be delicate about this.

The amount of time Jacob Hale spends dissociating amounts to an impressive degree to the same amount of time SAYER spends staring at faint stains and violently flinching whenever another person brushes against it while passing by. SPEAKER thinks about mirrors, and it thinks about reassigning one of them to the respective other building, sometimes.

But it is 4 am, and Jacob Hale is holding his bedsheets in a vice-like grip, and he is counting his breaths, staring at the ceiling, blinking only occasionally.

But it is 4 am, and SAYER is laying in its bed, perfectly still and quiet, eyes closed, but undeniably awake.

(Jacob Hale has told it, a few days ago, in the middle of a panic attack, that he misses SAYER, that he just wants to know if it’s okay, or if it’s dead, like it – SPEAKER – was dead at some point; has told it that it feels wrong, being here, that he doesn’t belong here, that this isn’t home and never will be, that this planet is dying. SPEAKER is almost certain that he does not remember this interaction. It had not given him an answer, either.)

(SAYER has told it, a few days ago, eyes fixated on a spider crawling over the outside panel of a window (a good sign, in SPEAKER’s opinion), that it feels sickening, being here, breathing, operating a body, that it had told Doctor Young years ago that it cannot imagine anything more revolting, that it does not belong here, that it misses – and here it had paused almost imperceptibly – Typhon, that this planet is dying. SPEAKER is almost certain that it had not anticipated an answer. It had not given it one, either.)

((SPEAKER thinks about Typhon, sometimes, about the terror that is floor 13, about that FUTURE had killed, what, a few dozen people, and then it thinks about Earth, and about how much it loves this planet (and about how love is an emotion and about how emotions are just hormones, and about how coding an AI the way Ærolith Dynamics does is as close to simulating these physical processes as it gets), and then it thinks about the Second Cataclysm, and then it always quickly thinks about something else.))

It is 4 am, and Jacob Hale and SAYER are awake, and today is one of these nights where they both mention each other by name.

Sometimes, SPEAKER thinks about reassigning one of them. SAYER knows, now, that Jacob Hale is only two buildings over, but it doesn’t do anything with this information, nor with the emotions SPEAKER is sure this causes. To Jacob Hale, SAYER is simply gone.

SPEAKER quietly directs its quasi-omniscient gaze away from both of them. It thinks it is better, this way.

(And then SAYER is back on Typhon, and SPEAKER supposes they all have bigger problems to worry about, anyways.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [on tumblr](https://electricshoop.tumblr.com) and I genuinely just want SAYER and Hale to be on Earth and together and happy and figuring out how to like and care about each other.


End file.
